Dispatches From North Of The Border

Attribution for Mind Map from SDSU education web!

New York Times February 8, 2007

The following material appeared directly as cited in the Technology Section called Q & A and the byline was from J. D. BIERSDORFER

Your Name, on the Web

Q. How do I make my own Web page and use my own name for the Web address?

A. If you don’t want to use the free site-hosting, page-building tools and templates available on sites like Google Page Creator (pages.google.com) or Yahoo’s GeoCities (geocities.yahoo.com) because you can’t have your exact name for the address, you will need to do a little more work.

The basic process involves buying the domain name for your site, finding a company to host it (so people can get to it on the Internet) and then building the site. Many Web site design and hosting firms have package deals that do most or all of it for you.

There are many companies that sell and register Web site domain names, including GoDaddy (www.godaddy.com), Dotster (www.dotster.com) , Register.com (www.register.com). On these types of sites, you can see if your name is available and register it there for a small fee. These types of sites can also usually guide you through the hosting and site-building part of the process.

Designing and building the site on your own may take some time if you are unfamiliar with the coding used on Web pages and other standard tasks like uploading them to a Web server.

Sites like www.2createawebsite.com and www.webmonkey.com have free tutorials on the process, and most bookstores have many volumes on the subject of Web site creation.

On a personal note, I found and use BlogJet as my WYSIWYG ... HTML and XML editor. Pictures and videos all can be easily added to your posts with attribution included.

BlogJet is easy to use and has every feature which I require and allows for editing, posting and publishing capabilities. In my opinion, this easy to use blog editor allows newbies and professionals, alike, easy, safe, fast coding and publication of your writings directly into the blogging world.

There is a one time cost for long term use of this software. Should you have the need there is a family plan for more than one blogger in a home which is a plus for creative and connected family bloggers.

Additionally, if you desire version upgrades of BlogJet (Version 2.0 - was recently released). You can get significant version upgrades at a reduced price. These are great value for money tools in the blog world. Both first time purchases and upgrades are attractively priced. You really get GREAT value for your purchase.

Test drive it for free and see how it adds to your blogging experience!

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Illustration by Doug Potter from the Austin Chronicle

In trying to better understand my 2007 desire to blog (somewhat inefficiently at the moment), you might care to know that I am secondary school faculty member living and working here in Oakville, Ontario. Working as a full time special education resource teacher, one of my daily needs is to understand and use the ever evolving technology associated with the computer and the Internet more effectively. To become more effective in the use of IT, I believe that my teaching/learning processes will become an even greater resource and learning support for my students. To more fully empower my students who use software and hardware technology everyday in their learning journey is something I most certainly aspire to everyday.

One of my personal learning goals, for my students, is to make their learning positive and cutting edge. As a special education teacher, my students despite their learning exceptionalities, know more about computer technology than many who are business leaders or teachers. They are very likely far more advanced than their parents because they use the resource everyday in school and at home for communication and social networking. This hands on computer knowledge is often misunderstood by the business community, employers and society. I learn from them everyday. Thanks gang for “teaching” me!

Why did I start this blogging adventure?It truly was a discovery of new learning. A very interesting gentleman, on a one year exchange to our school (from Sydney, Australia ~ "OZ") got me started, when I began to read his exchange journey blogging and the many connections between his teaching and his family’s exchange adventure.

This technology learning journey is also part of my own professional development plan. Blogging will allow me to write my thoughts and ideas and actually share them potentially with the world. (Who knows if anyone else will read them? If there is an opportunity for an exchange of thoughts and ideas then I will gain much more as an educator and as a blogger. Perhaps indirectly all of this will improve my communication and writing skills! Whether anyone else reads these blogs will tell with time however it would be nice to have others critique my thinking. I can imagine connecting with others from just down the street or on the other side of the planet.

The ultimate goal is to be able to use these skills and newly learned computer programming language tools efficiently in my blogging and especially in my teaching and in the education environment. As a teacher continuely developing, improving and learning new appraoches for my teaching will ultimately allow me to share these skills with my students everyday.

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